KL Rahul-led Lucknow Super Giants have won three back-to-back matches – out of four played – in the ongoing Indian Premier League 2024 and one such reason is their strong fielding side.
LSG registered their third victory as they defeated Gujarat Titans by a comfortable 33 runs on Sunday at Ekana Stadium in Lucknow. With this victory, LSG is in the third position with 6 points and a +0.775 net run rate.
Earlier opting to bat, LSG rode on all-rounder Marcus Stoinis hit his half-century – of 58 runs off 43 balls. This led LSG to reach 163/5.
During the second half of the match, LSG spinner Ravi Bishnoi caught a brilliant catch of GT batter Kane Williamson. It is now being hailed as the ‘best catch’ of 2024.
Dismissing the New Zealand batter, Bishnoi caught Williamson off his bowling as he leaped sideways.
Praising Bishnoi, LSG fielding coach Jonty Rhodes decoded the catch and said, as quoted by IPL, “If you don’t put your hands there, you never know. Someone like Ravi, he completely exhausts me and never misses a single day of practice. If we’re at the ground, he will take catches every single day. So, he works hard on his bowling, not so hard on his batting. But when it comes to fielding, he is never sitting in the dug-out and never hiding in the dressing room.”
“You can have some difficulties when you’re bowling and you have to react like that. The great thing about that catch was that he went backwards and gave himself time. Often when you see the ball, go you across with hard hands. So seeing that reaction in less than a second was great.”
Apart from Bishnoi, the other highlight of the match was LSG’s pacer Yash Thakur, who registered the second-best bowling figures for LSG in the history of the IPL. He ended up with figures of 5/30 in four overs at an economy rate of 7.82.
He took the wickets of Shubman Gill, Vijay Shankar, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmed.
Earlier, the best figures by an LSG bowler in IPL history belonged to England’s Mark Wood, who registered 5/14 in four overs against Delhi Capitals (DC) in 2023.
He also became the third bowler to pick a fifer against GT. Before that Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) star Umran Malik took a fifer (5/25) at Wankhede in 2022 and SRH’s Bhuvneshwar Kumar took a fifer (5/30) in Ahmedabad in 2023.
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Published: 08 Apr 2024, 07:32 PM IST